“I had the idea a long time ago when they were first talking about building Ford Field to replace the Silver Dome. It seemed like such a shame to see a structure like that go to waste,” Jaffe said. He was explaining the roots of his idea to build an actual Monkey Dome in Toledo.

Jaffe’s Monkey Dome is a structure twice the size of Ford Field that will span the Maumee River in Toledo and house many different species of apes and monkeys. Inside, visitors will walk through a series of clear plastic tubes, like you might find in a hamster cage, only people-sized. Jaffe views the building of the Monkey Dome as an “international, even inter-gallactic attraction that could put Toledo on the map.”

“Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Egypt has the Pyramids, Toledo could have something that would be an international landmark,” said Jaffe, “Instead of trying to plant flowers or put money into COSI, I think this is something that Toledoans could really get excited about.”

I know what you’re thinking, this has to be a joke, right? It’s not. “People don’t take us serious, and sometimes it’s frustrating. I understand that it’s a lofty idea, and it’s going to be a difficult thing to make happen,” he said, “But, just because something is hard is no reason not to do it. What if there were no pyramids and we wanted to build one? It’d sound crazy. I think that the Egyptians built the pyramids because they could, they knew they had the ability. Well, we have the ability to do this.”

Sure, at first the plan sounds, um, far-reaching. But I’ve thought about this a lot, and why not? Who doesn’t like monkeys?"